


How Do I Do?

by TheStrangeSeaWolf



Series: Quarantine Fluff [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (-ish), Bantering with yourself, Chips - Freeform, Cookies, Fire, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, It's also hard to steer a TARDIS, It's hard being the Doctor, Meeting yourself, Parking a TARDIS, Post-Episode: s08e07 Kill the Moon, Potatoes, Potatoes are the harbringers of doom and you won't convince me otherwise, Pre-Episode: s10e05 Oxygen, Sonic Sunglasses (Doctor Who), Stargate, The Doctor Being the Doctor (Doctor Who), Time Travel, Timey-Wimey, Why you shouldn't surf a black hole
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-29
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 14,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21606988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheStrangeSeaWolf/pseuds/TheStrangeSeaWolf
Summary: A TARDIS crash-lands in the Doctor's office. The pilot is a familiar face...Season 10 Twelve meets his younger self from season 08. A close encounter of the strange (and hilarious) kind.Set somewhere in the middle of season 10 for Season 10 Twelve and after the events of "Kill the Moon" for Season 08 Twelve.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Bill Potts, Twelfth Doctor & Nardole, Twelfth Doctor & Twelfth Doctor, Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald (mentioned), Twelfth Doctor/River Song (mentioned)
Series: Quarantine Fluff [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1672567
Comments: 41
Kudos: 65





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [InsideTheTardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsideTheTardis/gifts).



> InsideTheTardis thinks we need more S08 Twelve meets S10 Twelve fanfic. It never occured to me, but the longer I thought about it... yes, yes, we most definitely do!
> 
> So, here is my first take on this. InsideTheTardis was nice enough to draw my favorite scene for it.

The Doctor was working on his next lecture. Well, actually he was working on a new guitar solo, combining “Thunderstruck” and “Scotland The Brave”. He always found the music world had missed out to do this crossover and he was going to fix it.

Suddenly, there was a grinding sound and a loud crash in his office. Surprised, he unplugged his guitar and went to look what happened. He would have dropped the guitar if it hadn’t been for the sling when he saw a second TARDIS next to his own. It stood in an impossible angle and it looked as if it was somehow intertwined with his own.

He still wondered what this was all about when the door of the second TARDIS slammed open, a man stumbled out and fell to the floor. He immediately jumped up, staggered and slumped with his back against his TARDIS. He had short grey hair, was dressed in a magician’s coat and sturdy shoes.

The man rubbed his face with one hand and pinched his eyes, before he slowly began to observe the room. Then his eyes finally met his. He knitted his impressive eyebrows and his grey-blue eyes tried to pin him to the wall. 

“Sorry, Miss Marple, can you tell me where I have landed?”

Did that guy just call him Miss Marple?

“Apparently, you have just landed in my office and crashed my TARDIS. And I’m not Miss Marple, I am the Doctor.”

The other one scowled and wiggled his index finger at him.

“No, no, no, no, no. I am the Doctor. I don’t know who you are, but if you are not Miss Marple or Joan Hickson or Grandma Jane I am out of my depth.”

He waved his hand dismissively and turned around to inspect the damage on his TARDIS.

“Look at this mess. Who parks his TARDIS in such a stupid place, anyway?”

“A complete idiot, I’d say.”

“Glad you agree, Madam. Glad you agree. Parking a TARDIS inside such a small room and on such an ugly rug. Anyone would crash it, mind you!”

“Wait a minute, are you blaming me for your poor piloting skills?”

“Question: I never crashed into another TARDIS before, how likely is it that it is my fault? Answer: Not very likely.”

Okay, now this guy was really getting on his nerves. He was a very patient man, but he couldn’t stand this arrogance.

He moved closer to inspect the damage done to his own TARDIS. One corner of the poor old girl had been somehow crammed into the side of the other guy’s TARDIS. Something that was nearly impossible. It was only possible if someone messed with the timelines. Messed with the timelines really, really badly.

“Tell you what: I also never crashed a TARDIS and your TARDIS has crashed INTO my TARDIS, drawing one corner in, so I guess we can easily agree who’s the idiot in this case. What were you even trying to do? A U-turn in a black hole?”

The man turned around and stared at him owlishly and shuffled his feet.

“I… I might have underestimated a black hole. Somehow. A wee bit.”

Ah. So, the boasting time traveler was maybe not so self-confident after all.

“Underestimated a black hole? I mean it’s not like they are hidden or something. A good TARDIS will also refuse to fly too near to it.”

“Yeah… uhm… not when you turn the safety guards off.”

This guy was either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid. Probably both.

“Why would you do this? Especially when you are in the vicinity of a black hole?”

“I… uhm… might have tried to surf on the edge of time. You know… a little bit more into the past, a little more out in the future, feeling the breeze of the timelines going back and forth… you need a black hole to do that.”

“You surfed… You know that’s totally against the rules? And incredibly dangerous?”

“Yes. Yes, but it’s great fun! It’s me!”

The man burst into a broad grin that made him look like an insane werewolf.

“What happened then?”

“I might have tried to corner too sharply from the past to the present to get out of the black hole again and was washed to this future in the process.”

He shrugged and looked at his feet, obviously embarrassed.

“It happens. Can happen to anyone, I guess.”

There was something in the back of his mind telling him that it had happened to him, too, but he couldn’t quite remember how and when. He reached out his hand.

“Let’s try again. Hello, I am the Doctor.”

“No, no, no, no, I told you, I am the Doctor!”

They stared at one another. Both bowed their heads a bit forward to inspect the other man’s face closer. Both reached with one hand behind their heads to scratch the back of it. Both knitted their eyebrows and bit their thumbs.

That couldn’t be. It seemed like… He reached into his pocket and put his sonic sunglasses on, to be completely sure.

“What’s that?” The other man exclaimed.

“Sonic sunglasses.”

The sunglasses told him what he already suspected. He was standing in front of his younger self.

“Sonic sunglasses? Wow! That’s cool. May I try them?”

His younger self suddenly looked much younger. Like a child that had seen a new toy in a toy shop and now begs to have it. He couldn’t help but smile at himself.

“Only if you admit that it was your fault that you crashed my TARDIS.” He teased.

“Well, yes, maybe I underestimated some of the dimensions involved and accidentally parked my TARDIS a little too close to the corner of your TARDIS. Now, can I try them?” After some moments he added: “Please?”

“Alright then. But don’t look at my browser history, Sunday pilot.”

“They got Wi-Fi, too?”

He nodded and smiled at his younger self who was all excited and eagerly put the glasses on. They looked good on him. Of course, they looked good on him, that’s why he wore them.

“You are me! Oh my gosh. You are me and… and…” He gesticulated uncoordinated. “I am you.”

He took the glasses off to give him a scrutinizing stare and put them back on.

“And you are… I am… Are all the hairdressers in the universe cross with you or why do you wear your hair like… I don’t know… Beethoven’s grandmother or something?”

“I like it. Everybody likes it, actually. My students think it’s attractive. They call me the silver fox.”

He let his fingers run through his impressive curls.

“And at least it doesn’t look like a poodle with a crew cut,” he shot back.

His younger self snorted and immersed himself again in the glasses.

“Cat videos? You use the most sophisticated Time Lord technology to watch cat videos on youtube?”

Okay, enough was enough. He snatched his glasses from the younger man’s nose.

“I said don’t!”

He was glad he had stopped him before he found out that River had a youtube channel where she retold Greek myths using excerpts from cat videos. Maru getting into the beer box impersonating Patroclus putting on Achilles’ armor was just hilarious. He visited it often just to see River’s face and hear her voice again. It diminished the grief a little.

But his younger self was already distracted by the rest of his office. He paced around the room, amazed.

“Wow! Look at those windows! What is this place? A medieval castle or something?”

“A university.”

“Ah, don’t tell me. You sneaked into a professor’s office to steal some really important documents because they contain an evil plan that should not become reality. Right? Right?”

“Well, actually, I am the professor, and this is my office.”

His younger self burst into broad laughter.

“You? You are a professor? Ooooh, those pudding brains must be really desperate. I mean Clara always says that there is a crisis in the educational system, but this is outright ridiculous.”

“Clara who?”

His younger self didn’t answer. He was already inspecting his bookshelf, picking random books and flipping through pages. He really hoped he wouldn’t discover his secret hiding place for…

“Oh, hey, what’s that?”

Too late. The younger man had found the metal box in a tome titled “Einstein’s theory of relativity elaborated in 236 boring chapters”. He put the book on the standing desk, opened the box, discovered the cookies and immediately shoved one in his mouth.

“Oi! Those are MINE! Stop that! Hey, you!”

His younger self grinned at him and took another cookie.

He jumped forward and snatched the box out of his hands.

“The ones with chocolate chips are my favorite.” He munched.

“I know, that’s why I hide them from thieves like you. And don’t talk with your mouth full, you are spilling crumbs all over my papers!”

“You are sounding like my TARDIS.” The younger one shrugged. “What are you teaching, anyway?”

He didn’t remember he was such a cheeky rascal when he was younger. But then again, his memory of the time before River was strangely blurry and distorted, anyway. As if big parts were just missing.

He didn’t want to dwell on that thought. He put the box back into the book and carefully placed it back where it belonged.

He had asked himself something. Better to answer that one before his younger self got around to discover the secret hiding place of his whisky collection.

“Oh, I’m teaching a lot of things. You know, life, the universe and everything. Time and relative dimensions in space, actually.”

He shrugged. His younger self eyed him suspiciously.

“You have no idea what you are teaching, right?”

“I do. I mean, I teach what is really important. Space flight and how it relates to baking soufflés, for example.”

“And you need a guitar for that?”

He looked at his side. He had nearly forgotten that he was still wearing his instrument.

“Sometimes, yes. When it fits my lectures.”

He played the melody of Bowie’s “Space Oddity” unplugged.

“Oh please. I thought we were over this since we let go of that flute.”

“I don’t recall I was such a killjoy when I was younger.”

He shrugged and played on, changing to a tune he played often and that was called something like “Clara”, but he wasn’t too sure if he remembered correctly.

“Sir, here is your tea and I should remind you that Bill…”

Nardole had entered the office and now stared at him, then at his younger self and back at him again. He let the tray with the tea crash to the table.

“Okay, Doctor. This time you have definitely gone too far! I’m leaving now and when I come back after two minutes there will be only one of you and the right one or I will be really, really angry.”

And with this he turned around and stomped off, leaving two confused Time Lords.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joan Hickson being the best Miss Marple is again one of the things I would gladly start a pub fight on New Caledonia 2 about.
> 
> And if you can't imagine the Iliad being retold with the help of cat videos, I'm sorry for you. I really am. ;)
> 
> I would like to have a secret stash of chocolate chip cookies, but doubt it would last very long.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will be writing the chapters from different points of view because I think it will be hilarious to see how our characters experience each other. This one is written from Season 8 Twelve's viewpoint.
> 
> Artwork again thanks to [InsideTheTardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsideTheTardis/pseuds/InsideTheTardis).

“Okay, Doctor. This time you have definitely gone too far! I’m leaving now and when I come back after two minutes there will be only one of you and the right one or I will be really, really angry.”

He watched the bald man stomp out of the door. What a funny little man, he thought. But why was he bringing him tea? And did he really call him “Sir” earlier?

“Who’s the walking, talking, flesh-colored bowling ball with glasses?”

He asked his older self.

“He’s Nardole. He’s my… uhm… assistant.”

“You got a butler? Oh, that professor thing really got to your head, right? Suddenly the Time Lord thinks he’s really a nobleman and employs servants. I would never have expected me to get this entitled and posh.”

“Oh, shut up!”

Internally he liked meeting himself. He had met previous incarnations before, and it often was embarrassing and strange but meeting his own incarnation when it was older was somehow utterly hilarious. Especially as it was so easy to tease himself. Seeing him turn mad at himself was really funny.

Nardole came back, followed by a girl with a hairdo that was even more impressive than the one of his older self.

“See? I don’t know what he did wrong this time and how, but now there are two of them!”

Nardole said and pointed at them. The girl let her jaw drop and stared first at his twin and then at him.

“Hello, Bill.” His older self uttered, sounding slightly embarrassed.

“Doctor? Is that you? I mean, is that ALSO you?”

She gave him a scrutinizing stare that made him feel uncomfortable.

“I’m afraid so, Bill.” The other Doctor mumbled.

“Who is curly head?” He demanded to know.

His older self shot him an angry look.

“Bill, that bloke talking nonsense is apparently also the Doctor. Doctor, this is Bill Potts, my student.”

“Ah, when you told me you are a professor, I thought you were teaching a whole lecture hall of pudding brains. Glad authorities are smart enough to let you spoil just one of them.”

“I do lecture in front of at least a hundred students regularly,” the other Doctor told him, obviously he hurt his vanity and pride. “But I’m tutoring Bill, because she’s smarter than all the rest combined.”

The girl literally beamed at those words.

“So, you dumb her down to average, so she fits in better? That’s pretty smart, Doctor,” he grinned, “delighted to meet you. If you are that smart, why don’t you let a real professor be your tutor, Curly?”

“Bill. Bill Potts. And it’s because he’s the best!”

The curly head exclaimed with confidence.

“Well, then, if you think so, maybe you are not as smart as the Doctor thinks, Curly. I know that man and I can assure you that he’s an idiot. I know him as well as I know myself, I’d think.”

“At least we can agree on that!” His older self huffed and rolled his eyes.

The girl’s eyes wandered from one Doctor to the other and back again.

“I think this one,” and she pointed at him, “is you when you were younger.”

He nodded.

“Yes. Seems like it. What’s the evidence?”

The other Doctor obviously went back into tutor mode.

“The real you is much softer.”

“What?” He and his older self exclaimed in unison.

“Yeah, you are softer, especially around the middle.”

The girl said and Nardole burst with laughter. He chimed right in, while his older self scowled at them.

“I think she just called you fat, Sir.”

“No, no, not fat, just right, I’d say. The wrong one is a bit skinny.”

Okay, time to set the head of that girl straight.

“Hey, I’m not ‘wrong’, Curly! I’m just as right as he is. I’m just earlier than him.”

Okay, that one had sounded better in his head than it did once it was spoken. All three of them looked at him slightly amused. Oh, well, while he was at it…

“And I’m busy saving the universe instead of sitting in a well-heated office stuffing myself with cookies I hide away from my servants and students.”

Now his older self looked really angry and clenched his fists.

“Ha – I knew it!” Nardole exclaimed. “Where does he hide them this time?”

“I refuse to give any evidence that could incriminate myself.”

He said and his older self sighed relieved. Nardole bristled with anger. The girl continued to eye both Doctors.

“But… but… I don’t know, shouldn’t this create some kind of temporal paradox, I mean big-time. Like, the web of time unravelling or the universe crashing or something?”

She was obviously much smarter than he had thought.

“I guess so, Bill,” his older self shrugged, “I guess we have to be very, very careful now until we have found a way to get skinny Mister Save-The-Universe back to his own time.”

“How did he get here, anyway?”

“You better ask that idiot himself,” his twin said, and he felt the heat crawling up to his ears. The girl stared at him questioningly.

“I… I might have missed the right exit out of a black hole,” he mumbled.

“You were in a black hole? But you told me that this is too dangerous and that you never would fly your TARDIS near a black hole. And that the TARDIS has safety guards that prevent you from flying too near by accident. What did you do, Doctor?”

The girl eyed both Doctors suspiciously. This conversation turned into an interrogation. He didn’t like where this was going. He searched the room with his eyes, looking for a reason to change the subject. His eyes fell to the desk and the pictures that were set up there.

“Oh, hey, that’s River!” He smiled at the picture of his wife. “Have you met her lately?”

To his surprise the shoulders of his twin slumped and he looked sad.

“She died not too long ago,” Nardole whispered.

“Oh.” He didn’t know what to say. He was never good at saying the right things and Clara was not here to help him out. On the other hand, he figured, he wasn’t good at receiving condolences either and probably didn’t know how to respond to them anyway, so perhaps it was better for both if he just said nothing. And, technically speaking, they had both lost their wife. Maybe it was better to just change topic.

“No pictures of Clara?” Was the next thing that came to his mind.

His older self looked at him confused.

“Clara who?”

“Ah, come on! Clara Oswald. Small, roundish, brown hair, brown eyes. Control freak? Eyes that inflate sometimes so her face is all eyes? Broad face? Needs three mirrors? Teacher? Has a crush on Jane Austen?”

His older self shook his head at all the leads he gave him.

This couldn’t be possible. Sure, he probably did something wrong with that Moon thing. He was still not sure what it was. And she told him to go a long way away, but he still doubted she really meant it. She was just as addicted to adventures as he was himself. And even if she had abandoned him forever, he was sure he would never forget his small, assertive, clever, egomaniac control freak, his impossible girl. 

For a moment both Doctors stared at each other in confusion.

“What did you mean by ‘when we found a way to get him back to his own time’, Doctor? How did he end up here?”

The question girl – what was her name again? – asked. He was thankful that she had interrupted because while he had never been good with names it shook him to the core that he seemed to develop dementia later in his life.

“He has crashed my TARDIS with his TARDIS, look at this mess.” His older self gesticulated towards the scene of the accident.

The bald one and the curly one started towards it. His twin pulled him back once more when he wanted to follow them.

“One word about the rug and I will hit you so hard you regenerate.”

He looked at himself surprised by the sudden burst of energy and anger.

“So you never will end up being a professor? Tired and burnt out from academia already, Doctor?”

“Oh, just shut up! It was a Christmas gift from Bill, and I don’t want you to hurt her feelings. I remember being not especially good with emotions back when I was you.”

“I see. A Christmas gift. You two are this close then?”

He wiggled his eyebrows. His older self groaned.

“Oh, please, not you too. Since when are you even interested in shipping people? Especially yourself. I mean… err… you know how I am… you are… we are… oh, heck, whatever! She’s my student. And a friend. And besides, I’m not her type. She prefers woman.”

“You might consider regeneration, perhaps you are lucky this time.”

“The offer to hit you so hard you can give it a try still stands!”

They joined the others and inspected the two intertwined TARDISes.

“Wow, that’s even worse than when you crashed the tour bus of that heavy metal band on Erkmat 7, Doctor,” the girl said.

“Bill! I told you it was necessary because they tried to resurrect Ivan the Terrible.”

“It was just a musical plot, Doctor. And so, I still don’t know how a heavy metal musical performed by Adipose looked and sounded like. “

“I doubt that it would have been worth the time, Bill.”

“I still suspect that you crashed the tour bus because you didn’t want to see the musical in the first place.”

The older Doctor bit his thumb and smiled sheepishly.

“So, you are saying that you sneaked out with the TARDIS again, Sir?”

Nardole looked at the Doctor accusingly.

“Well…”

Seeing himself so uncomfortable under the scrutinizing stare of the bald man was strangely adorable. He looked at his crashed TARDIS, then back to the three inhabitants of this office.

As far as he was concerned, he didn’t mind sticking around in this future a little longer. It was really entertaining and kept him from brooding.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, now, how does Bill experience what goes on...

Okay, so, she really got used to a lot of strange things lately. Being stalked by a puddle, for example. Or being shot at by gigantic pepper mills with a toilet plunger and an eggbeater instead of hands. But this time her professor really took the biscuit. Whatever he had done, now there were two of them.

And more than that. Her professor was always a bit eccentric, on the verge of being silly. But since his younger self had appeared, they acted like two little brothers who were perhaps 2 years apart. They were bantering nearly constantly, and it seemed to be just a matter of time until the two of them would start a brawl.

Now they were standing where the younger Doctor’s TARDIS had crashed into her professor’s TARDIS.

“I still don’t get how you even managed to land it in this weird angle. It’s impossible.”

“You see it worked, don’t you? Or have your eyes turned just as bad as your memory?”

“I have an excellent memory! I can even recall the big bang.”

“Because you visited it yesterday, I guess.”

“Last month!”

“Sir! What have I told you about staying on Earth? You are breaking your oath!”

Nardole was obviously angry at her tutor. She still wondered why his assistant was so persistent in keeping her professor on Earth. And what that oath he kept mentioning was all about.

“An oath? You swore an oath? The man that can’t stop lying to his enemies as well as to his companions?”

This conversation started to get interesting. Seems she was going to learn a lot about her strange alien professor’s backstory. Right now, he seemed to be getting uncomfortable under the scrutinizing stare of his younger self.

“It doesn’t matter!” He grumbled.

“Oh, it matters, Sir. It sure matters. River would be not amused!” Nardole insisted.

“Nardole, for Gallifrey’s sake, must we discuss this in front of those…” he looked at them, obviously trying to find an encompassing term for her and his younger self, “…kids?”

“Ooooh, is granddaddy sending us to our room to play when he and grandma need to discuss adult topics?”

The younger Doctor wore a broad grin and winked at her. She involuntarily had to wink back. Although this younger version seemed harsh and snotty compared to her tutor, he sure had some boyish charm to him.

“Shup up! Let’s think about how we get this mess sorted.”

“Oh, the mighty professor has no masterplan on how to separate two intertwined TARDISes?”

The younger Doctor teased.

“Technically, shouldn’t the plural be TARDII?” She blurted before she could stop herself.

Both Doctors blinked at her owlishly. Right at this moment they really looked like twins.

“Time and Relative Dimension in Space – Times and Relative Dimensions in Spaces – No, I think as the S belongs to the name, TARDISes is the correct term.” Her professor answered.

“What do you mean? The acronym means ‘Totally and Radically Driving in Space’. And I don’t care about grammatical rules. If you like to, feel free to break them, Curly. Call them TARDII, if you like to.” The younger Doctor grinned.

“So, if this is your idea of totally and radically driving in space, that explains a lot, Sunday pilot. It just doesn’t explain how we can rectify this mess!” The older Doctor said, trying to get his hand between both TARDII.

Suddenly he screamed in surprise and pain. She rushed to him, hoping he was alright.

“What’s the matter, Doctor?”

“I don’t know. I suspect that there is a crack in space-time between the TARDISes and I got my hand in between.”

“So, your hand is now in another dimension or what?”

“I have no idea, Bill. But it sure isn’t a pleasant experience. And I have lost a hand before – I would like to have mine back. Do something, or are you just good for crashing my TARDIS and stealing cookies?” He shouted at his younger self.

The younger Doctor strolled over casually and grabbed the sunglasses from his older self’s pocket.

“Oi! Don’t you have your own screwdriver?” The older one huffed.

“Sure, but with glasses I have both hands free. Try to catch up.” The younger one grinned.

“So you don’t have to drag your hands out of your pockets, lazybones?”

“Says the Time Lord who is rummaging in another universe with one hand. Now, that’s what I call a weird fetish.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“You better be nice to me or I’ll let you stick where you are and go out to find me a nice little restaurant. Surfing black holes makes me hungry. Are there any nice restaurants around campus? Curly? Bowling Ball Head?”

“Hey! What did you just call me?” Nardole exclaimed.

“The canteen is not too bad, and I have to start my shift there in about half an hour anyway, you can join me, Doctor.” She offered.

“Do you have chips?” The younger Doctor sounded hopeful.

“Oh yes, best chips on this side of the river Avon. It’s what this university is famous for!”

“Oi, I thought it was my lectures!” Her tutor exclaimed, still trying to get his hand free, but to no avail.

“Yes, of course. Let’s say what this university is famous for on the non-intellectual side of things, okay?” No need to make her professor mad at her.

“And sauces, do you have different sauces?” The younger Doctor wanted to know.

“Oh yes, we serve all sorts of sauces. Our cranberry sauce even won an award last year. It’s delicious.”

“Sorry to interrupt your culinary discussions but I’m still stuck with my hand in a time-space crack if I may remind you!” The older Doctor shouted, looking strained.

“And? Do you expect me to free you?” His younger self teased.

“Yes, for Gallifrey’s sake! Just get a move on!”

“What’s the magic word?” The younger Doctor grinned, gloating on his older self’s misfortune, who groaned at the humiliation.

“Please,” he exhaled between gritted teeth.

“As you wish.”

Tipping his fingers leisurely to the sunglasses he soniced the gap between the TARDII until the older Time Lord could remove his hand. 

“Ouch. That was a nasty parallel universe down there.” He rubbed his hand.

He took another look at the place where the two TARDII met.

“Oh no. Which setting did you use?”

“Setting 487, standard setting for the release of humanoid tissue, flesh and bone. Why?”

“Oh no, you didn’t!”

The younger Doctor looked confused at his older self, who groaned frazzled.

“Oh no! There was an update for the sonic software. Now 487 is the one for ‘combined release and welding’! You basically welded our two TARDISes together! Why didn’t you use 69 which is the sonic spreader since forever?”

“Didn’t want to damage them further. You know the damage the 69 does occasionally!”

“You idiot!”

“How was I to know there was an update. Who thinks that combining the functions ‘release’ and ‘welding’ is a good idea, anyway?”

The older Doctor bit his thumb, obviously embarrassed.

“Well, usually you release something and then you have to weld it shut immediately after. Think about how often that happens! I thought it was a good idea. Saves time. The release for humanoid tissue, flesh and bone is now the 6539.”

“No one can memorize four-digit codes for really important settings. Where did you get that idiotic idea from?”

“Well, I might have asked a software engineer from MacroSoft for advice, because I wanted to improve the usability of my sonic devices. Met him recently in Silicon Valley because they had a small cyberbug invasion.”

Now his younger self groaned.

“I can’t believe it! Being a professor really has a damaging effect on your brain. Since when do you listen to computer nerds instead of just listening to your TARDIS?”

Both TARDII hummed their approval.

The older Doctor realized he was outnumbered. Besides, his own TARDIS had already told him what a stupid idea that update had been. Several times. Every time he used his glasses, actually. Maybe he should change it back to the original settings.

“Sorry.” He mumbled. The TARDII hummed that they accepted the apology.

“Now, I guess we are really in trouble. I have no idea how to fix this.”

“Can’t you just… I don’t know… cut them apart… is there no angle grinder setting to the sonic or something?” She asked.

“It’s not that simple, Bill,” her professor answered, “We don’t know the consistency of that parallel universe behind that time-space crack. It might be explosive and if we use the setting 7834…”

“A four-digit code for sonic angle grinding? No one can memorize this!” The younger Doctor sounded stunned.

“Excuse me? I already apologized and I will restore the original settings in the next update, okay? Now, like I said, if there is an atmosphere on the other side of the space-time crack and if it consists of inflammable gases, a single spark might ignite the whole universe – and the backdraft could destroy the TARDISes, and maybe even this universe if there is an unfortunate chain-reaction.”

“KA-BOOM!”

His younger version added, gesticulating with his hands and grinning enthusiastically. Seems the affection for big explosions was also no recent addition to this Time Lord’s character.

“Ooookay… not good. Not really good. But there must be a solution, right? There is always a solution if we ask the right questions, right, Doctor?”

Her Doctor looked at her concerned. She never saw him out of his depths, but now he seemed close to it. He gave her a wry smile that might have been meant to be reassuring but had the exact opposite effect on her.

“I think I can think of something, Bill. I just have to read for a bit. TARDIS manuals. And maybe a bit of Einstein. Don’t worry, Bill.” He gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “You know that there is an upside to all this, right?”

An upside? She thought hard about it. The two TARDII were welded together, in front of a time-space crack. No one knew if there was a way to separate them again. And as long as this was the case, she suspected, they couldn’t use them. A younger version of her professor had broken the laws of time and encountered his older self. So, this was the grandfather paradox reversed in a way. Wait. Wait. Maybe it was something about this.

“Isn’t this a reversed grandfather paradox in a way, Doctor? I mean, if you travel back in time and kill your grandfather you can’t be born. But if your grandfather travels to the future and meets his grandchild, he knows that _you_ are born, right?”

“Bill Potts, top of class!” Her Doctor smiled and to her surprise pulled her into a hug.

“Cuddle!” Nardole exclaimed and hugged them both.

The younger Doctor arched a confused eyebrow at this scene.

The Doctor broke the hug and smiled at his younger self.

“Ah, come on, don’t tell me you don’t understand it!”

“Oh, sure I understand, _my_ mental abilities are still intact. Because I came here and saw you all, you became a fixed point in time.”

“Exactly!” Her tutor said, grinning broadly. “Which means that whatever you do, you are not doing something so idiotic that we cease to exist! Isn’t that great?”

His younger self shrugged.

Her professor gave the two welded TARDII another in-depth inspection. She wondered if he would find a way to bring his younger version back to his correct timeline despite the mess he created.

“The most important thing will be that you stay here in the office. We can’t risk that something happens to you while you are here. This is the only really big risk in this constellation. If I can suppress my urge to hit you so hard you regenerate, that is.”

“Ahem, Sir, who are you talking to?” Nardole asked.

“Who I talk to? To my idiotic earlier self, of course!”

“Sir, I fear you have just left the building.” Nardole uttered.

“Seems he is in a hurry.” She said, looking out of the window.

Outside, the younger Doctor was running towards the south-east of the campus. She wondered what he was up to.

“This is how I look like when I am running?”

Her tutor had joined them, and this was obviously the first time he saw himself running.

“Yeah, like a penguin with its arse on fire.” She confirmed.

“Why didn’t _anybody_ tell me?”

“Actually, I did.”

“Really?”

Was he ever paying attention to what the people around him were saying?

“Yes. You said it had to do with ergonomics.”

“Yes. Yes. Running like that is very ergonomically.”

“I just hope the car designers will never discover that, Sir.” Nardole mumbled.

“I already suspected that keeping me in would be a problem. Someone has to watch over him, so he doesn’t get himself into trouble. Nardole?”

“Oh no, Sir, I know you. You just send me out to guard him so you can sneak out yourself!”

“Nardole, may I remind you that my TARDIS is welded onto another TARDIS?”

“I’m not sure this would stop you.” The cyborg replied, arms crossed.

“Bill?”

“I need to start my shift in the canteen in 10 minutes.”

“Hmmm, I suspect he headed off to the canteen, anyway.”

“Okay, I can give it a try. But if he isn’t there you have to… uhm… take care of yourself, I guess.”

She shrugged and went for the door. Suddenly her professor shouted after her:

“Take care, Bill! He still carries my sunglasses and he sure won’t download and read the manual before he uses them! Stay wide away if he tries anything with them!”

“Oh, great. This is you before River brought some sense to your mind, basically with zero social skills, on campus with sonic sunglasses you don’t know how to use? What can possibly go wrong??” Nardole sighed. “Looks like it is better I go and look after you, too.”

She heard the cyborg coming behind her. Maybe the answer to this question was “nothing”, but she already suspected that the answer would be very different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An excited Twelve showing expressively what might happen to the universe thanks to [InsideTheTardis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsideTheTardis/pseuds/InsideTheTardis).
> 
> And: Sorry, Bill, the plural is indeed TARDISes.   
> Source: <https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Tardis>
> 
> Might be inspired by several updates in the office suite. And yes, I do have troubles memorizing four-digit codes. Can you tell? :/


	4. Chapter 4

Chips sounded like a good idea. And he didn’t feel like hanging around in his older self’s office all day and reading boring manuals. This was his future and he was going to explore it. So, he sneaked out of the office and sprinted towards where his nose told him the canteen was.

He caught some surprised looks from students. Maybe his older self didn’t run? But why shouldn’t he run? This campus was vast. He wouldn’t go anywhere if he just crept around.

He reached the canteen. The sound of cutlery on plates and chattering filled the room. Students were queuing up to collect their lunch. Seems to take forever to try some of those chips that were famous, according to the question girl with the curly head.

He left the canteen to search for the service entrance. There always was one. The only thing he had to smell for was the mixture of chip fat and cigarette smoke. According to his experience human canteen staff was always smoking outside the service entrance, dating back to the staff manning the canteen tents of Caesar’s legions.

He found the entrance on the backside, where two young females with hairnets and white coats smoking and talking about their favorite actor’s choice to grow a beard. He greeted casually and sneaked past them. They didn’t even seem to notice him.

The canteen kitchen was hot and steamy. A delicious smell lingered about. Everybody was busy serving as many meals as possible as quickly as possible. Seems it was the main feeding time for pudding brains.

“Doctor!”

He turned on his heels. The question girl was standing behind him, dressed in a white coat and desperately trying to fit her curls under a hairnet.

“Doctor, this area is for staff members only. Would you please leave the kitchen?”

He stared at her. Leaving the kitchen? Him? What a ridiculous thought. He pulled the psychic paper from his coat.

“Gordon Ramsey? You are positively NOT Gordon Ramsey! And this is not a restaurant that needs saving, this is the canteen of a university and will always have customers, no matter how bad the food is.”

“Excuse me? You said the chips were the best?”

The curly head groaned as if he had said something stupid.

“Of course, they are. I only wanted to make the point that you can’t just run around in a university kitchen.”

She sighed before she continued:

“At least we have to make you look as if it is okay you are here.”

“It IS okay for me to be here, very okay! It’s my favorite place, my natural habitat, even!”

He exclaimed. The curly head sighed and handed him a white coat; a few sizes larger than the one she wore. The length was alright, but he could have wrapped it around himself twice.

“Looks like someone tries to pass a scarecrow as a doctor.”

He turned around to see the bald butler looking at him, amused.

“I would watch my mouth if I looked like a well-polished bowling ball with a lousy dress sense!”

“I would watch mine if you don’t want to draw the attention of the head chef to you. He would be able to throw you out and ban you forever from this canteen.”

The bald man shot back. This guy was getting on his nerves. How could he dare to speak to him like that? Seems his older self was stupid enough not to teach his staff manners.

“Which would mean you lose the chance to taste the best chips in this area,” the question girl added. Okay, maybe she had a point. He sighed.

“Here’s your hairnet,” she handed him a strange looking thing.

“A hairnet? Give me a break? If I had a grey jungle instead of hair like my older self, I’d understand, but this is outright ridiculous!”

“Doctor…”

“Seriously. And if _I_ have to wear a hairnet, why doesn’t _he_ need to wear one?” He pointed at the bald head.

“See, I told you!” The Doctor’s butler exclaimed. “He can see my hair!”

And he let his hand hover over his head. The curly head sighed.

“Okay, Nardole, it may be pretty pointless, but here’s a hairnet for you, too!”

Both men put their hairnet on without further discussions.

“And now: lunch time!”

He yelled exited and sprinted further into the kitchen, earning surprised looks by the kitchen staff. He stopped by a chip-basket filled with pale looking chips. He took one and put it in his mouth. It was cold, frozen even. Hard to chew. Since when was this the pudding brains idea of chips?

“What’s that? Ice cream chips? That’s a stupid idea, it tastes awful, seriously!” He munched.

“Doctor, they aren’t done yet! They have to be fried, first!”

Ah. Well, that made sense. But didn’t she say something about sauces? Ah, right, he saw a whole row of buckets with sauces standing on the counter. He drew his faithful spoon from his pocket.

“Doctor, stop! Nardole, stop him before he spoils the sauces,” the curly head shouted.

He felt a strong arm dragging his arm behind his back. He turned around and sent a surprised bald man flying across the kitchen.

“Don’t touch my spoon hand!” He hollered.

Now he had the attention of the whole kitchen staff. A small, roundish, black-haired man with a large moustache stepped forward and shouted.

“Could someone explain what is happening here?”

The man scowled at basically everybody in the room, even the people behind his back. An awesome skill, the Doctor noted. He definitely had to practice that one.

“Venusian Aikido. This man has tried to touch my spoon hand.” He explained. “Are you the boss of this cookshop? Because, seriously, your security and hygiene measures…”

“Okay, who feels responsible for that idiot?” Moustache man yelled. “Potts, isn’t that your professor?”

Curly head stepped forward and took his arm gently.

“Come on, Doctor,” she said calmly, before she addressed her boss with a firm voice: 

“No worries, chef, I’ll take him out.”

“I hope so, Potts, one more of those incidents and you are sacked!”

“Oi, you treat her with respect, or I’ll make chef sauce out of you, moustache man!”

“Don’t listen to him, Sir, he might have had a bit too much…” The bald one had picked himself up again and made a drinking gesture with his hand.

“Carry that drunkard out, immediately, or I forget myself!” The chef shouted angrily, grabbing a spatula.

“Doctor, it’s okay. Just come outside, I’ll get you some chips and sauces, okay?”

The curly one whispered in his ear. He still felt like teaching mustache man a lesson, but it would probably get the girl into more trouble. He didn’t want to cause her trouble, she seemed to be very nice. And she had promised him chips.

He let her guide him outside. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time to have the next chapter from Bill's point of view.

Bill had managed to calm down her boss, explaining that her professor had suffered a few major losses in the past and just had a visit from a family member that reminded him, so he was probably not totally responsible for his actions. She even talked her boss into giving her the day off to look after her professor. She grabbed a plate of chips and added a sample of all available sauces.

When she went outside, she saw her professor – or his younger version – seated at one of the tables in front of the canteen. The sun had just come out, and he slipped his sunglasses on his nose. Two students greeted him casually as they strolled past him.

“Hey-ho, dashing new haircut, Doctor!”

One of the two mentioned. He absentmindedly let his fingers run through is short hair and looked confused. She set the tray with the chips in front of him.

“Ah, thanks, curly head!” He said with a broad grin, immediately shoving five chips at once in his mouth.

“Potts. Bill Potts,” she answered annoyed. Seems she had to run the younger version of her professor through the ‘I have a name, you know?’ game like she had to do with all stupid old white men who couldn’t be bothered to remember the name of people younger and not as privileged as themselves.

“Alright, come sit with me, Potts, Bill Potts!” He patted on the seat beside him. She looked at him, not sure if she wanted to do that. She didn’t know what kind of man her professor had been in the past, so she preferred to be cautious.

“You really have to see that! Did you ever try out these glasses?” He looked over the brim of the sunglasses, boyish excitement glowing in his eyes.

No. The sunglasses were her professor’s sanctuary, and no one was allowed to touch them. She remembered how he had lashed out on Nardole one time when he had dared to clean them without his knowledge.

“Nope. These are something like the Holy Grail to your older self. Off-limits for everybody.”

The younger Doctor snorted and mumbled something like “stupid, possessive, elitist idiot,” then took them from his nose. He signed again that she should sit next to him. She took a seat and put the glasses on.

“Look at the chips, you can see temperature, ingredients, and – with a click on the left side of the glasses – you can even get the information where the potatoes came from.”

The Doctor said excited and nearly incomprehensible because he munched chips along with the explanation.

True, that was exciting. Looking up she could get the size, age and species of all her fellow students and the professors. Disappointingly enough, they all were human. But she saw quite a few who cheated on their age and height. There was one where the readings were odd, but when she tried to focus on them, they went out of sight.

“Oh, the cranberry sauce is really fantastic! Should I show you something else?” The Doctor asked, between two handful of chips. He reached out with his greasy fingers to take the glasses back.

“The chips have cooled down and I want them a tad bit hotter. So, I choose setting 563 for the microwave…”

The glasses beeped and the table collapsed in front of them. Bill startled and gave a small shriek. Then she looked at the Doctor who seemed just as surprised as herself.

“You didn’t see that coming, did you?” She asked.

“Uhm… Not exactly,” he admitted. “Seems the standard microwave setting was moved somewhere else. But I didn’t know these were folding tables. Nice!”

He remarked, fetching the plate with the chips. He continued eating as if nothing had happened.

“So, 563 is what? The setting for ‘fold’ or for ‘reset to factory defaults’?” He asked.

Bill looked at him questioningly, sensing it was not really a question. He pointed into the direction of another table with students. Three older students were obviously making fun of a fourth, younger student who looked scared.

“Do you feel like we should try what 563 is over there?” He asked.

Bill smiled and nodded. The Doctor tipped on the side of his glasses three times and the chairs collapsed under the bullying students. They fell to the ground, looking confused.

“Still doesn’t tell us if it’s ‘fold’ or something else,” he shrugged, “but was fun, anyway. So, if 563 would be ‘fold’ chances are 536 should be ‘unfold’.”

He pointed to the chair of one of the bullies, tipped and the chair began to burn. The three bullies really had enough now and ran away.

“Well, well, so that’s not it. So, 536 is either ‘burn’ or it is the missed microwave setting and those chairs are not suitable for microwave use.”

The Doctor looked to the plate in his lap, tapped at the side of his glasses and a small flame emerged from the chips. Bill stared in shock to the small trail of smoke rising from a heap of black charcoal on the white plate.

“536 is ‘burn’. Good to know.” The Doctor nodded, grinning at her.

“Uhm, Sir?”

A slender pale young man had approached their table – or what was left of it. Bill didn’t recognize him at first, but then remembered he was one of the students helping out with the administrative side of things on campus.

The Doctor looked up, eying the student over the rim of his glasses.

“Yes, what do you want, ghost boy?”

The student took a step back and bowed his head, looking uncomfortable in his own hide.

“Sir, I’m sorry, I really am, but you are supposed to hold a lecture and it’s already ten minutes past the starting time.”

“Ah, sure, my pale horseman!” The Doctor exclaimed, jumping up. “I was just preparing a few experiments for it!”

The student looked shocked at the smoking remnants of the pile of chips, the collapsed table and then at the Doctor.

“Ah, science! Today we will have a look at time, space, relative dimensions and the power of sonic devices! You do have smoke detectors in the lecture halls, right?” He asked the young man who grew even paler as he nodded.

“Great!” The Doctor clapped his hands together, rubbing them in delight. “Let’s have a lecture! Bill, are you coming with me?”

Bill was not sure if it was a good idea. Maybe it was wiser to inform her real professor, but then she recalled that Nardole had said something about reminding the Doctor of something, so it was probably best to follow the younger Doctor now.

Maybe she could at least keep him from burning the university to the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stay safe in this time of crisis, stay at home if you can, stay healthy if you have to work.   
> And thank you, all you who work in healthcare, supermarkets, delivery, logistics, public services, thank you all for providing us with what we need! :3


	6. Chapter 6

The Doctor had read all the manuals available. His TARDIS had even hacked the Dalek database for more information, and he had eaten all his cookies from his secret stash in the Einstein tome. There was a way to separate the TARDISes, but it was complicated. It would take some time and more tinkering than he had done since he was that bloke with the frilled shirt and the velvet coat. Worse, in the end he would need the help of – and he shuddered at that thought – his younger self.

“Sir?”

Oh no, that nuisance Nardole was back. He had hoped his younger self would get himself into enough trouble on campus to keep the cyborg busy.

“What?” He sighed.

“Your lecture… you are already running late and it’s in building 36 on the opposite side of the campus.”

The stupid university administration always changed lecture venues. He hated them for it.

“Okay, we take the TARDIS so we can back out a little and be there on time!”

“No, you won’t… and besides: your TARDIS is welded to another TARDIS, remember?”

Oh, right. Sometimes he really missed the details.

“Okay, I’ll walk there. You stay here and keep an eye on the TARDIS.”

“In your dreams, Doctor!”

He heard Nardole’s reply and the steps of the much smaller cyborg behind him as he started running towards building 36.

“Potatoes! For millions of years they have posed threat to the universe, perverting the course of human history!”

His younger self was pacing like a whirlwind in front of the audience, gesticulating widely, an excited look on his face. Had he been that hyperactive? He couldn’t remember and right at this moment all he could do was bite his thumb in shock and horror as he witnessed… basically himself… holding a lecture.

“Until you, the human species have found the ultimate way to beat them! Humans! Brilliant humans!”

His younger self reminded him now decidedly of a much younger incarnation of him, wide-eyed and excited for his favorite species. Which one was it? Oh, yes, sandshoes him!

“What did you do?” His younger self exclaimed now, taking notes on the blackboard.

“Did you melt them with acid? No! Did you burn them to the ground? No!”

The younger Doctor paced back to a table where Bill had set up a gas stove with a pot and lit the burner. Then, he took five potatoes out of a sack on the ground and started juggling with them.

“Juggling. A very ancient art of entertainment, known from Ancient China to Greece… And Ancient Rome. Did you know that Seneca was in fact a pretty good juggler? Well, Nero learned that skill from him and I still think he should have taken my advice to establish a travelling circus with bloodless entertainment instead of… oh, well, spoilers, I guess…”

His younger self grabbed a knife from the table and added it to the flying potatoes.

“No, I think it’s not really spoilers if it happened before your time, right? A well, where were I?… oh yes, potatoes… really, they tried to follow me back to Rome last time, but I was able to fend them off. But that is not what I wanted to tell you…”

He watched his younger self juggling with five potatoes and a knife and while he did understand why he didn’t hurt himself in the process – he _was_ a brilliant juggler, after all, and had showed 12-year-old Seneca how to do it – he didn’t understand why his students just accepted his younger self as their professor. This guy was lecturing gibberish, not useful, meaningful insights like himself. They must have noticed that something was off by now! But they just sat there and listened to his younger self in awe as if he was teaching them a valuable lesson.

Potatoes!

Ridiculous!

Although he had to agree on their dangerous, evil hive mind.

He turned his attention from the audience to his twin’s lecture again.

“This is what you do: First, you flay their skin!”

With a few exact juggling moves his younger self threw the knife in a way the potatoes were peeled, one after the other while they all stayed in the air.

What a show-off!

“Eye, Potts, Bill Potts, is the oil ready?” his younger self shouted, Bill looked to the cooking pot and nodded. Bill. She was siding with his younger self! Assisting him! He couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“And then, what do you humans do? That’s brilliant! You slice them up, the little buggers!”

Again, the knife flew through the air, slicing chips out of every potato and sending them to the pot with hot oil, one by one, making the oil spatter.

“And you boil them in hot oil!”

With a swift movement his younger self turned towards the door where he was standing and sent the knife flying in his direction. He ducked and the blade bored into the doorframe above his head. His younger incarnation laughed a mad laugh before he turned to his audience again.

Bill had followed the knife with her eyes and now their eyes interlocked. Bill shrugged and put the finger to her mouth. Yes, as always, his smart, capable student was right. Better he stayed hidden from the other students. He knew that the knife throw hadn’t been an attack on his life, it was just that his younger self tried to impress him. He wasn’t impressed. If _he_ had thrown the knife, he would have made sure the knife would have landed just mere nanometers from his head.

“The point is that upon contact with the hot oil all the moisture on the outside just vaporizes, resulting in a hard, crispy crust. This is what causes the spattering… Clara always scolds me if I do that because she says I ruin the kitchen…”

This was the second time he mentioned a “Clara” he didn’t know. Maybe this self wasn’t from his own past but from an alternate universe? He also noticed a dark expression crossing his younger self’s face. He immediately recognized it: guilt and regret. What had happened to Clara? Something he felt guilty for. Which wasn’t a surprise, to be honest. What had this idiot done to Clara? He felt his hearts clench as memories of Donna crawled into his mind.

“And here we are again: time and space! All of this happens so quick that the moisture inside of the potato can’t escape. It is trapped inside a tight space and boils the interior into a squishy perfect fluffy whiteness!”

His younger self took a slotted spoon and shoveled the chips to a plate.

“Salt and cranberry sauce, Potts!”

His twin ordered and passed Bill the plate.

“Now, through the journey of a few centuries, humanity has invented quite some possibilities what to do with the evil villains. Squash ‘em! Boil them in water with caraway! Quarter them and boil them in salt water! Slice them and kill them by baking them with a layer of ham, cream and cheese! But until this day…”

Bill was back and handed the other Doctor the plate with chips and sauce. He took it and shoved five chips into his mouth immediately. The rest of the lecture was more or less incomprehensible because his younger self kept on lecturing and eating at the same time. His students didn’t seem to mind.

Suddenly a girl in the front row screamed and pointed to the pot. It was in flames and black smoke emerged from it.

In a nanosecond he had calculated the situation. He knew what would happen and he had to act quick.

He sprinted forward, shouted “Out, all of you, as fast as you can, run, you pudding brains!” and pushed Bill to the ground, covering her with his body.

From afar he heard a female voice shouting, commanding but calm:

“Out. We evacuate the auditorium. Use the exit doors on the top side and to the right, keep calm, watch out for each other. We will make it out of here safely, but we have to evacuate the auditorium. The top exits are safe. Stay away from the lower ones. Get a move on!”

Seconds afterwards the sprinkler system went off and he knew the water would be vaporized the moment it reached the burning pot, spraying burning oil all over the place. He felt a gigantic fireball rolling over him. He cursed the university administration for installing a water-based system instead of one using foam. But then again, he figured, the auditorium was never meant to be used for chemistry demonstrations of that size.

“Sir? Sirs? Bill?”

He heard Nardoles voice from the door. That nuisance. The situation was worse enough even without that pain in his neck.

Doctor Idiot can’t even be burnt to the ground without making bad puns, he scolded himself.

“I’m here, I’m fine,” he answered anyway.

“A little too well-done on the backside, but otherwise fine,” he heard a second voice not far away. His other self.

“I’m okay,” said the shock of black curls beneath him, slightly muffled. He was relieved that she sounded unharmed.

“Okay, Sirs, Bill? I have a foam extinguisher here that will allow you to come out of this. I’m coming in. If I shout ‘run’ you are running towards where you hear my voice now. It’s the first door to the left.”

“Understood!” Three voices answered in unison.

“Run!”

Nardole shouted over the hissing of the extinguisher a moment later.

He got up and helped Bill to her feet. Together they ran towards the door, Nardole close behind them. As they got out of the auditorium and ran down the corridor towards the exit firefighters ran past them.

Then, they stood outside, panting.

“Are you alright, Bill? Nothing hurt? Nothing burnt?”

He asked his favorite student.

“I’m okay, Doctor, don’t worry, you covered me well and probably saved my life.”

She hugged him which hurt his back more than he had expected. He drew air through his teeth and tried not to let the pain show.

“You are hurt, Doctor!”

It didn’t work on Bill. Of course, it didn’t work on Bill. She was far too smart for that.

“Oh, this was fun! Now I get why you like lecturing, Doctor. Everybody has to be silent and listens to you; you can still blow things up and on top of that you get an office and a paycheck!”

His younger self laughed and rubbed his hands. He felt anger welling up.

“You stupid idiot! If you would have harmed Bill in any way, I’d kill you right here and now!”

“Which wouldn’t be the smartest idea, right? The stupidest form of murder/suicide ever.” His younger self grinned.

Okay, now he had to do it. He often wanted to punch himself when he did stupid things. And now he had the once-in-a-regeneration chance to do exactly that. He clenched his fist and raised it to strike, but Bill grabbed his arm.

“Doctor, stop! Technically, I was the assistant so I should have made sure the burner is turned off after the experiment. Especially as I know how forgetful you are when you are doing a lecture… or when there is food involved…”

He looked into her bright brown eyes. What did she mean? He didn’t forget things. He might get easily distracted by some things, perhaps, a little bit.

“It wasn’t your fault, Bill,” he said softly, to turn his anger to his younger self again, “it was this bloody idiot’s fault! You could have killed her, are you aware of that, you stupid, stupid idiot!”

He shot himself an icy look.

His younger self looked down to his feet, as if he just now realized what he had done.

Bill stepped forward and grabbed his twin’s arm. Then she reached out to him and did the same with his arm.

“Listen, you two. I guess it is better to go back to your office before someone realizes we have two identical professors around. I can’t imagine what the university administration would make of that. It’s probably against some policy. And you are both hurt, so you probably need treatment.”

“I am a Time Lord; I have superior Time Lord biology!”

He and his younger self said in unison.

“Oh, shut up, both of you!”

Bill said and dragged them towards the office, he on her right side, his twin on her left.

It wasn’t the first time he had to congratulate himself that he had taken up tutoring her. It was probably the smartest thing he had ever done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing this I learned that the BBC has a scientific explanation about the perfect chip online: <https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150407-the-science-of-the-perfect-chip>  
> As you can see, the Doctor is doing it wrong. He might be a superior Time Lord, but he is not a superior chef. He should have first fried the chips at a lower temperature and then, in a second run, fried them at high temperature, resulting in delicious, tasty chips with a crunchy crust. Damn, now I’m hungry, I wonder why. 😉  
> Oh, and if you want to see an amazing, yet, terrifying video of what happens if you put water to a pan with burning oil, see this video of the Slow Mo Guys:  
> <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbgdRR4yj8Y>  
> Consider that they had only a small amount of oil, compared to a whole pot of it and did it on an empty parking space, not in an auditorium with inflammable material around… Never try to extinguish a burning pan with water, folks! Use a wet towel or a blanket to block the fire from oxygen.  
> Yes, I do have a tendency to write domestic kitchen related stuff becoming nightmares. No, I STILL assure you that it has nothing to do with my real life.  
> Stay safe, everybody!


	7. Chapter 7

„Why do I have to take care of weird you?”

Bill was upset. Her professor had just suggested that the younger version of him should stay at her flat for the night.

“He can’t stay at my office! He will interfere with my research. And he drives me mad.”

“Ah, well, I may remind you that he has just burnt down a whole auditorium. With students in it. You think it’s a smart move to have him in my flat?”

Her tutor flinched.

“Bill, please, do I have to remind you that I am a convalescent patient?”

He looked at her in the way that always reminded her of a beaten puppy and he knew fully well that it always worked on her. She hated him for that. No, she didn’t really hate him for it. But she was rather annoyed that it worked so well.

“Did you just call me ‘weird him’?”

The younger version of her professor demanded to know.

“Yes. Yes, I did!”

She felt the urge to apologize but reminded herself that she talked to the man who had nearly killed her in a stupid experiment and hadn’t found it necessary to apologize for that. She had a right to have this opinion about him, and he should very well know that.

“Why am I ‘weird him’? Why is he not ‘weird him’? He hides cookies in books and he’s the elitist dude who doesn’t let you use his sonic sunglasses!”

“Ah, by the way, Mister!”

He professor stretched out his hand to his younger self and made a demanding gesture. The younger version sighed and handed him the sunglasses.

“I will need your help tomorrow so we can get you back to your right time, but for tonight, you will stay with Bill!” Her professor commanded.

“Oh, this will be fun!” The younger version of her professor clapped his hands and beamed at her excited. Bill rolled her eyes.

“Okay, but there are rules: no explosives, no fire, no sonic screwdriving…”

“No fun!” The younger Doctor scowled.

“I wasn’t finished! …and no, I repeat, strictly no punching of people!”

“Not even racists?”

“I might make an exemption for racists.”

“Great!”

“But you will not go to a pub to find racists!”

Her professor added quickly.

“No fun!”

His younger twin pouted and shuffled his feet.

“Alright, if that’s settled, you can come along.” She shrugged and headed towards the door.

“And behave! If Bill complains about anything, I will curse your time by sending Nardole with you!” Her professor shouted after himself.

“Hey!” Nardole exclaimed.

“Cursing your past? A bit dumb, I reckon. That way he is getting on your nerves even longer!”

“Hey, I can hear you, you know?”

Now the cyborg sounded really angry. Both Doctors looked at him and shrugged simultaneously.

“Hey, why can’t he stay with Nardole?” She asked.

“Bill!” Nardole and both Doctors exclaimed in unison.

“Look, Bill, Nardole is my…” her professor started.

“Wife,” his younger self suggested, which earned him the angriest attack eyebrow stare Bill had seen on her professor since the day another student had suggested to sell his TARDIS for charity and buy a karaoke machine instead.

“Assistant!” the older Doctor completed the sentence. “And as such, he lives here with me and this means that if this catastrophic individual stays with Nardole he still will run around here in my office and cause havoc.”

“Aren’t we technically the same individual?” The younger Doctor asked now with a fake innocent tone.

“Oh, for Gallifrey’s sake, just shut up!” Her professor’s cheeks showed a hint of red she had never seen before.

She sighed. It seemed to be her task to arbitrate the situation. But she couldn’t resist the urge to tease her professor a little bit.

“Come on, then, we let mommy and daddy discuss this among themselves now, okay?” She winked at the younger Doctor and grabbed his sleeve.

“Okay, Potts, Bill Potts,” he answered with a broad grin and winked back.

They left the office with a confused professor and an equally confused Nardole staring after them.

“This is your tutor?”

Moira looked at the younger Doctor with a gaze that was definitely not how a foster mother should look at the tutor of her daughter. It was more the look of a hunter on its prey.

“No, his twin brother.”

“Uh-hu.”

Moira had started to move closer to the Doctor, which made him walk slowly backwards, away from her.

“So, is this the older or the younger brother? Maybe I should have a closer look at your…”

The Doctor had now bumped with his legs against the kitchen table and stared at Moira, obviously uncomfortable but no longer able to move backwards.

“…professors!” Moira finished her sentence, now grabbing the lapel of the Doctor, an expression in her eyes that was all but innocent. The Doctor stared at Bill in a silent cry for help.

“They are twins, I said! He’s the younger brother, although I don’t see how this could be relevant. And he’s not available for you. He’s taken!”

Bill had no idea if this was true, but she knew her professor’s wife had died and so she assumed it wasn’t wrong.

“Sooo… Sailor…” Moira had now laid her hand on the Doctor’s shoulder and looked at him with a seductive smile. “What is the name of the commander of your ship?”

The Doctor still looked at her like a deer in the headlights.

He gulped, which caused Moira to giggle. She winked at him alluringly and let her hand glide to his chest.

Finally, the Doctor cleared his throat and stammered:

“C…Clara.” He cleared his throat again and said with a steadier voice: “Her name is Clara.”

Bill looked at him surprised. As far as she knew, the name of her professor’s wife had been River. There was definitely more to discover about her professor’s past.

“Ah, why is it that the best men are always already taken or gay?”

Moira said, softly patting the Doctor’s chest.

“Probably because they are smart enough to see past the outside appearance?” Bill said before she could bite her tongue.

“Where are your manners, young lady! Shut up while adults are talking!” Moira snapped at her.

The Doctor had used the moment of Moira being distracted to bring a kitchen chair between them. He grabbed its back tight and Bill was not entirely convinced he wouldn’t use it as a weapon should Moira try to get close to him again.

Her foster mom looked annoyed and disappointed upon realizing he had brought himself out of her reach.

“Well, then, the night is still young. I think I will go out for a bit. At least I can be sure you both won’t do anything I would definitely do if I were you.”

She gave the lower half of the Doctor one last scrutinizing stare, shrugged and grabbed her coat to leave.

“When will you come back?” Bill asked, more out of habit than real interest.

“Not tonight, if I am lucky.” Moira replied with a sly smile.

“Wish you the best of luck, then!” Bill replied. This time she meant it dead serious. She didn’t want to witness another attempt of Moira – later that night after an unsuccessful hunt probably a very drunken Moira – hitting on the younger version of her professor. She assumed that a second time wouldn’t go that smoothly and without casualties.

Her foster mom left and closed the door behind her. When Bill looked to the Doctor, he had already taken her toaster and was examining it closely. He rummaged his pockets.

“You don’t have a screwdriver here, by any chance?”

“No, I haven’t, and I said no screwdriving in my flat already.”

“You said no sonic screwdriving, that’s a difference. I just need an ordinary screwdriver so I can fix this.”

“The toaster is fine; it doesn’t need fixing!”

“Says you.”

The Doctor replied and turned the toaster around, which resulted in a mess of breadcrumbs on the kitchen table.

“See, it leaks! It needs a crumbs reduction system. I could…” he grabbed the small handheld vacuum cleaner on the sideboard, “…upgrade your toaster with that!”

He said with a broad grin.

“You could start the crumb reduction on the table with that one, yes. But I don’t think my toaster needs an upgrade, thank you.”

“You already sound like Clara,” he shrugged disappointed and started to clean the table.

Whoever Clara was, she seemed to have trained him well in domestic matters, he hadn’t complained, and he vacuumed much more methodically and efficiently than most men she knew.

She realized that this was the unique chance to find out more about her professor’s past. She sensed that his younger self was much more willing to tell her something because she wasn’t his student. As long as he had a reason to sit down and talk to her, and she was sure that she had the perfect bait to lure him into doing that.

“I’m going to prepare the spare bed for you and afterwards we could have some wine and snacks, how does this sound?”

“Snacks?”

The Doctor asked with a broad excited grin.

“Snacks!”

She confirmed.

If she had learned one fact about the Doctor since he was tutoring her it was that the prospect of food never failed to make him happy. She went to fulfill her promise.


	8. Chapter 8

When Bill came back from preparing the spare bed, the younger Doctor had melted into the sofa in the living room, feet on the table, watching an old episode of “Stargate” on TV.

“I don’t know how you humans can watch that crap. Wormholes. Star gates. Ha!”

“Says the man who crash-landed a time-and-space police box in the time-and-space police box of his older self.”

She remarked, placing a bottle of wine, two glasses and a packet of crisps on the table.

“Accidents will happen.”

The Doctor shrugged, ignoring the wine but immediately reaching for the crisps.

“Yeah, especially if someone surfs black holes. I don’t see how this is any weirder than using star gates to get to distant planets.”

“Physics, Potts, Bill Potts. Physics! Black holes: out there, even in the middle of your galaxy, dark, all-consuming, surfable. Wormholes: Sci-Fi crap, done to get a crew of human idiots faster from point A to point B because that’s what the writers need to get on with the plot.”

“Einstein thought they were possible, though…”

“You really listen to the lectures that old idiot does, it seems.”

“Of course, I do, he’s my tutor!”

“He’s an idiot!”

“No, he’s not. Ah, well, sometimes he is.”

“Yeah, I know…”

The younger Doctor shoved a considerable number of crisps into his mouth and chewed with a broad grin.

“Ah, much better than that Goa’uld nonsense. What crappy monsters… I could tell you about much better and scarier monsters and villains!”

He said, nearly incomprehensible, crisp crumbs falling from his mouth, making a mess on himself and the sofa. Bill sighed and poured herself a glass of wine. The flat would need a thorough cleaning after this Doctor left.

“You’ve been watching this for quite some time now, though.”

She remarked when she realized he was still watching the show with deep interest, despite his own comments.

“It’s because of Captain Carter. She’s worth more than the whole rest of that idiotic crew.”

She realized the excitement in his eyes and grinned.

“You stan her!”

He arched an eyebrow at her.

“I do what? Potts, ‘stan’ is not even a word! Not in any language I know!”

She giggled. The younger version of the Doctor lost his composure much faster than the older one. She had caught him admiring Sam and he now looked at her like an angry owl. A blushing angry owl.

She had mercy on him and changed topic.

“There is no chance I get some of those, right?”

The Doctor held the package of crisps close to his chest and looked at her as if she wanted to steal a toy from a baby owl.

She brought a second package of crisps and lowered herself next to the Doctor on the sofa. He eyed her package of crisps, a baby owl trying to decide if her package was larger than his.

They watched the end of the episode in silence.

She was aching to learn more about her professor. He had finished his crisps and she wondered if he was now relaxed enough to answer a few questions.

„That Clara, who is she?”

“Why do you want to know?”

The Doctor tensed and looked at her, suspicious.

“Because… when you talk about her, you are a totally different man… Doctor… Time Lord… whatever.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“How so?”

“Well, usually you are grumpy and rude and sarcastic.”

“Thank you very much.”

Bill was not impressed by his grumpy remark.

“The Doctor would say: Q.E.D. – what was to be shown. But when you mention Clara, your whole expression, even your whole self is becoming softer.”

The Doctor scowled. Bill grinned and offered him to grab some crisps from her package. He accepted eagerly.

“So? Who is she?”

“She’s… my companion.”

He said hesitantly.

“I see. But she wasn’t with you. Where is she?”

“On Earth.”

You really had to worm everything out of him if it got personal, that obviously had always been the case. It was not a current development from living like a hermit with just a cyborg as a friend like she had assumed when the Doctor started tutoring her.

“Soooo… you knew you would do something stupid, surfing the black hole, and didn’t take her with you because you knew it would be too dangerous?”

The Doctor shook his head. She bribed him with another grab of crisps.

“Other way round,” he mumbled, munching.

What was this supposed to mean? Ah, she got it.

“You did something stupid and she sacked you.”

He nodded.

“Wow. Okay, so what did you do?”

He told her what happened to the Moon and how Clara told him to go away and not to come back. It broke out of him as if he had kept it to himself for too long. He looked happy in the beginning and hurt, scared, and confused at the end.

“The thing is,” he concluded, “that I still don’t understand what I did wrong. I was just trying to respect her.”

“Really?”

It was so damn obvious that she just didn’t get how someone could not understand what was wrong with this behavior. Despite all their cleverness Time Lords really seemed to be a bit thick when it came to relationships. Well, maybe this Doctor was, she had only met two Time Lords so far and they were technically the same person, so…

“Yes. I have been thinking about it for I don’t know how long. I meditated. I even talked to otters, who are really good in relationship advises, but they were less than helpful.”

“It never occurred to you that it might be helpful to talk to a woman from Earth about it, though?”

He tilted his head and blinked at her, making him look even more owlish.

“Actually, no, it didn’t,” he said hesitantly. 

She let out a small groan.

“Okay, Potts. Bill Potts. You _are_ a woman from Earth. Be a pal. What did I do wrong?”

Okay, at least he was willing to learn, so there was a spark of hope. But she was not going to tell him. He should figure it out by himself, the way he – or the later version of him – always did with her.

“So, you say she’s your companion. A companion is a friend, right?”

“More than that. Much more than that, I’d say.”

She was surprised. This was interesting.

“Much more than a friend? How so?”

“A companion is someone you give a key to your TARDIS, so she can basically mess with time and space or block your way out of critical situations. But you trust her that she doesn’t do that. You would trade in your own life for hers anytime. If you would turn blind, deaf and voiceless a companion is the one you would trust to be your eyes, ears and voice. A companion is like a part of yourself.”

She gulped. This was a beautiful description. She wondered if her Doctor saw her as a companion or just a student.

“So… I assume that it also works vice versa. You are a companion to your companions, right?”

He nodded his approval.

“Okay, Doctor, so, would you say that deciding whether that innocent creature about to hatch was going to live or to die is a tough decision to make?”

“It is a tough one. Life is full of tough decisions. It’s part of being grown up to make tough decisions.”

“Right. It’s part of being an adult. Here’s a tough one for you, oh ‘old enough to be your Messiah’ Time Lord: What does a companion do when his companion is in a difficult situation?”

“Helping her, of course.”

“Okay, and let’s say she’s in a situation where she can only get out of all by herself. Let’s say she’s hanging on a cliff and she can only save herself by climbing a rope. But she’s scared of losing her grip and doubts she has enough strength to make it to the top. What does a companion do for his companion?”

“He… stays on top of the cliff and tries to encourage her that she can do it, so she has enough confidence in her own strength.”

“There you go,” she said.

He looked at her confused. Bill raised her eyebrows and made a hand gesture indicating that the connection should be obvious. She groaned when she realized he still didn’t get the picture.

“You would not tell her that she’s a big girl now and that she has to climb up there all by herself and then run off in your TARDIS, letting her dangle on the rope over a terrifying abyss, would you? But essentially this is what you did on the Moon.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ”

Seems it finally sunk in. He looked terrified. Both didn’t say a word for some time.

“Do you… do you think she will forgive me and come back?” He finally asked.

“Honestly? I don’t know. Don’t think I could if a friend had let me down like that. Depends on her personality and your relationship, though.”

He gulped, shuffled his feet and looked to his fingernails.

“I can definitely see why the Doctor has chosen you as a companion, Bill Potts.”

He uttered and her heart jumped. So, it was very likely that her Doctor really saw her as a companion, not just some random student he took up tutoring because he was bored.

“One more question, Bill: you understand women from Earth. Is there anything you can think of I could do to win Clara back? I mean, considering I’m… I’m not good with all this talking about emotions thing. I really got it wrong quite a few times when I tried to do so. So, I think if I try to apologize with words, I will screw it up. I just know I’ll do.”

“I take your word for it.” She smiled at him.

“Ah, forget it, I think I already have… or at least I will… although I still wonder how THIS could happen. There really is no explanation for this, I really don’t understand it…”

He let his fingers run through his short hair and rubbed his face. He looked even more confused and sad than earlier on.

“What is it you don’t understand?”

“How he could forget Clara. How can he have forgotten his impossible girl?”

“Oh, he’s over two thousand years old and must have had hundreds of companions. I’m not surprised he has forgotten them. He’s not good with names, so I think after some time, you know...”

“No, no, no, no, no, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill, Bill. That’s not how it works!”

His voice was almost angry now and she backed away a little, causing him to flinch back in return, obviously trying to temper his emotions.

“I might forget names, but I never forget a single face, no matter how short our encounter was. But you,” he pointed towards her, “you are all in here,” and he pointed to both sides of his chest, “all the companions I ever had are engraved in my hearts. It’s not a simple memory. It’s much stronger. Much deeper. I can’t forget any of you. Ever. Sometimes it hurts so bad when I think about the companions I lost that I can’t breathe.”

His eyes became wet and he took a deep breath before he continued.

“And Clara… she was even more special. She was in love with my previous incarnation and shattered herself in his timeline to save him. And echoes of her are standing on guard all throughout time and space to save me.”

Wow, whenever she thought the background story of the Doctor couldn’t get any stranger, he revealed something like this. She didn’t really understand what a timeline was, nor how one could shatter oneself in it, but it sure sounded unpleasant and dangerous.

“She was also the first face this face saw and that’s really special. Something must be terribly wrong with me if I have forgotten her. Is your Doctor acting strange lately?”

“That’s a good question. I don’t know what’s normal for a Time Lord and what isn’t, and I mean, if travelling in a police box through time and space is normal for you – I don’t really know what would count as strange behavior for you lot.”

“You have a point there, Bill.”

He fell silent. Suddenly he looked much younger and somehow lost.

“That Clara, she likes traveling and adventures, right?” She asked after a while.

The Doctor nodded.

“What if… what if you just find a planet or a time in history or something else, she would really, really like to see? I don’t know, meeting Shakespeare or something, or going for the New Year’s Eve party in Paris 1899/1900. And ask her if she would join you one last time – to say thank you to her for travelling with you. I think I couldn’t refuse such an offer, no matter how bad you screwed up.”

“A last hurrah.”

“Yes, a last hurrah. And maybe, when you are really, really lucky… I mean like they say: When the stars are in the right place… And when she sees that your heart… your hearts… are in the right place, because they are, right?”

“I hope so,” he mumbled, averting her eyes.

“Right. Then perhaps she might decide she can forgive you.”

“Do you really think there is a chance?”

He looked at her with just a glimmer of hope in his eyes. A bit like a little boy when you tell him that Santa Claus might erase him from his “naughty” list if he manages to be a really good boy this December. There was something heartbreakingly innocent to it.

“Doctor, if you manage to look at her like you look at me right now, I think she won’t have the heart to leave you.”


End file.
